Former coach Stuart Lancaster said yesterday still thinks about England’s World Cup nightmare “every minute of every day”.
But he added he was desperate to coach again, ideally with a southern hemisphere team.
Lancaster’s four years in charge of the national side ended in November after he was effectively sacked following a World Cup where England became the first host nation to bow out at the group stage thanks to defeats by Wales and Australia.
“You think about it every minute of most days, or every day really,” Lancaster told BBC Radio Five. “A lot of things have happened since then but equally it’s still very fresh in my mind.
“It’s been a tough six months.”
Lancaster’s move in bringing in rugby league convert Sam Burgess into his World Cup squad just months after his cross-code switch proved controversial. That Burgess returned to Australian rugby league giants South Sydney Rabbitohs from Bath soon after the World Cup didn’t do him or Lancaster many favours in the eyes of many union pundits. “I don’t think there was any winner in the end,” said Lancaster.
“If I’d known he was going to go back to rugby league then my decisions would have been different. But we didn’t know that at the time. He was a great and positive influence in the group. He worked hard and earned the right in our minds to be in the World Cup squad.
“It’s a shame the whole thing played out the way it did.”
Lancaster hasn’t had a senior job since leaving Twickenham, while England under Australian boss Eddie Jones, their first overseas coach, have since won the Six Nations with a grand slam—both prizes that eluded the 46-year-old Englishman.  

‘Brilliant’ Jones
Lancaster said: “You’d want to still be doing the job ultimately but I do feel hopefully it’s been passed on in a good shape and with good, talented players coming through and Eddie has done a brilliant job in moulding them and getting the best out of them in the Six Nations.”
Lancaster added he was optimistic about England’s prospects for the 2019 World Cup after overseeing a difficult “period of transition”.
“I would hope with the average age now of about 24, and I think Eddie had 550 caps in his starting team, that’s going to be up to 700, 800, 900 with the same group of players by 2019.  
“We won’t be in the situation whereby we’re umming and ahhing about who our 30-man World Cup squad is—it’ll be clear and obvious.
“We went through that period of transition and we won’t have to go through it again.
“Ireland are having to go through it now, New Zealand are having to go through it, South Africa will have to go through it. I think we’re well set now for the next four years.”
Meanwhile Lancaster was eager to return to the fray. “I want to coach again,” he said. “The lure of coaching Super Rugby and wanting to coach in the southern hemisphere is a big one for me. “You can’t create opportunities and you certainly can’t create yourself a job but the southern hemisphere would be a tremendous challenge from a personal point of view and it would be a great, great opportunity.
“But we’ll see—the Premiership, player development, wherever. I’m open-minded at the moment.”

Burns guides Leicester past Stade Francais
Freddie Burns notched up 16 points as he led Leicester to a 41-13 European Cup quarter-final victory over Stade Francais yesterday  to set up a mouth-watering last-four clash against either Racing 92 or Toulon.
The Tigers built up a healthy 24-6 first-half lead thanks to three tries from England centre Manu Tuilagi, Fijian winger Niki Goneva and Burns.
Stade hit back when scrum-half Julien Dupuy scored a five-pointer for the reigning French league champions early in the second half.
But any hopes of a serious comeback by the Parisian club, that currently sits 12th in the Top 14, were put to rest when Goneva crossed for his second.
Flanker Mike Fitzgerald went over for Leicester’s fifth try with 20 minutes to play, after being fed by an unselfish Goneva.
The game was put out of sight when Tongan winger Telusa Veainu streaked over in the corner to ensure a first semi-final appearance for the Tigers since 2009.
“It was a very big game for us and we’re very blessed and thankful,” Leicester centre and man-of-the-match Peter Betham told BT Sport.
“We were very clinical. More often than not we make mistakes but today was a good day for us.”
Stade hooker Remi Bonfils said his team had been “hoping for better” after a disastrous domestic season.
“We knew it would be complicated, we started well but we made too many individual mistakes.”
Leicester, winners of the European Cup in 2001 and 2002, will now play the winners of the day’s late kick-off between Racing 92 and defending champions Toulon, bidding for an unprecedented fourth straight European crown.The other all-English semi-final was settled on Saturday after Saracens posted a 29-20 victory over Northampton and Wasps saw off Exeter 25-24.
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